Opinion | What Happened to South African Democracy

Media contributes to democracy in south africa essays

In the space that follows, I will emphasize several pointsthat summarize my trip. I have selected only a few photos frommore than nine rolls to help me organize my comments along thesemain themes: challenge of democracy, challenge of poverty, challengeof AIDS, and challenge of globalization. I am most interestedin the prospect of democracy in South Africa, given its domesticand global constraints.

Former President Nelson Mandela implored his countrymen tobuild a "."South Africa has a a very diverse population and a multiculturalsociety. Scholars surmise that ""-- defined as "the odds that any two persons will differin their race, religion, ethnicity (tribe), or langauge"-- poses challenge to democracy, because it makes political compromiseand accommodation more difficult. South Africa's multiculturalismindex is 87 -- surpassed only by such diverse nations as Indiaand Nigeria. According to the most recent (1996) census figures,76.7% of the population are Black / African, 10.9% are White,8.9% are Colored (mixed race), and 2.6 % are Asian / Indian. Thereare eleven official languages. The same census shows that thefive most commonly-spoken languages at home are IsiZulu (22.9%of population), IsiXhosa (17.9%), Afrikaans (14.4%), Sepedi (9.2%)and English (8.6%).

In 2009, then Constitutional Court Judge Kate O’Regan asked in a paper about justice and reconciliation what the implications were “of the arrest and imprisonment of so many South Africans for deeply unjust reasons over so many years for our modern attempt to establish a shared conception of justice in a constitutional democracy founded on the rule of law?”

Assessing How Far Democracy in South Africa is Liberal …

Britain's Representative Democracy, the Westminster system is described as an FPTP (First-past-the-post) system. It is an old system but, as with all representative democracies, it still struggles with representation. South Africa predicted representation problems with FPTP and turned to PR in 1994. It was predicted at CODESA that should the Westminster system continue then whites would likely be under-represented nationally because in most areas they would be out-numbered. In total whites would be represented 1 to 6 in national government as they do in reality. In this light, CODESA decided that the citizens would vote for a party on a national level and the party would allocate the Member of Parliament seats afterwards based on national proportions (the Proportional Representation system).

History: South Africa’s Road To Democracy (1990-1994) …

Since 1994 South Africa instituted a major democratic principle - one man one vote. However, because of potential racial representation issues, South Africa steered towards greater party power by choosing a PR (Proportional Representation) system. This has led the country away from grass-roots representation.

Bantu Education - South Africa: Overcoming Apartheid

Nevertheless, South Africa has a , with a federal system, a popularly elected president,a , a National Assembly (the lower or people house ofthe Parliament) whose 400 representatives are elected by a partylist system -- a form of proportional representation (PR) systemas opposed to the single-member district system (SMD) as seenin the U.S. After the , the ruling party, the ANC (African National Congress),now controls two-thirds majority in the legislature. In 2000,the two major "white" parties -- the DP (DemocraticParty) and the NNP (New National Party), who is the much diminisheddescendant of the old National Party -- are undergoing a processof realignment that will probably result in the absorption ofthe NNP into the DP. The other major black party, the IFP (InkathaFreedom Party), is particularly strong in KwaZulu-Natal and controls34 seats.

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This move of CODESA was not surprising since PR systems are becoming popular world-wide. This is because in such systems parliamentary seats are proportionally accurate when compared to national figures. The proportional anomalies of the FPTP system are eliminated making it easier for small parties to enter the arena fairly.10 Parties can claim '' representation in parliament giving them a sense of legitimacy. However, because parties now allocate the MP seats it is a system that is more prone to corruption - parties invariably choose their favourites over community favourites. At its worst, practical representation is completely lost. This is a most dangerous affair because a party's claim to be legitimately and indisputably representative is tragically only numerical in parliament. Such is the exuberant sentiment of South Africa's 'new-found' democracy - oblivious to the lack of actual representation on the ground - the MP's constituency link is gone! This political flaw is easily tested - simply ask any member of the public whether they know who their MP is.

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Assessing How Far Democracy in South Africa is ..

NP government members and ANC officials finally agreed on a 5 year term for government and political parties that gain over 5% in the election would be proportionally represented.

1993 Chris Hani AssassinationOn the 10th April 1993 Chris Hani had just returned from the corner café when he was gunned down by Janus Waluz on his driveway. This incident jolted the entire right wing back into activity and placed them at the top of the political agenda. Later both Janus Waluz and Clive Derby-Lewis were convicted of the crime and were sentenced. This assassination formed a large amount of conflict in South Africa as Hani was a very popular ANC leader, however Nelson Mandela addressed the nation in order to avoid a civil war and keep the peace so that the negotiation process could continue.

AWB Attack World Trade CentreOn the 25 June 1993 members of the right wing AWB political party demonstrated outside the World Trade Centre in Kempton Park during a negotiation and later drove vehicles through the doors into the building. This was all part of the AWB to disrupt the negotiation process as right wing conservatives.

1994On the 27th April 1994 South Africa eventually reached its first democratic election whereby all citizens of the country could vote. Over 19 million South Africa voted and later it was concluded that the ANC had won the election and Nelson Mandela would be the first democratic president of South Africa.

Essays on democracy in south africa - …

To quote a local example, the South African public should in generally be opposed to any kind of alliances - such as that of the NNP and the ANC. Similar alliances like the should also be met with distaste - all of these reduce the range of choices and limit political competition! Of course, if one alliance forms to bully all the little ones then all the little parties are justifiably obliged to make there own alliance. None-the-less less choice is always a bad thing. Worst of all is the alliance between the ANC, COSATU and the SA Communist Party. This alliance is bad or "unholy" as some call it, for two reasons. Firstly, the ANC has aligned itself with the Communist Party, a party that advocates a form of government notorius for its lack of competition and subsequent corruption. B Secondly, the ANC's alignment with the COSATU, the largest trade-union in the country, is cheating competition in two ways. 1) With COSATU's ability to hold the economy to ransom it has significant political influence over the ANC government. As an alliance though, COSATU obviously has an obligation to "persuade" its members to vote ANC. So in total a union member's say in government is twice that of the ordinary citizen for he is able to vote his party into power and then also gets to manipulate them too through his union. This would be fine only if every citizen or political pressure-group had the same level of influence. 2) The irony of COSATU is that its oligarchic and autocratic management is not owned or controlled democratically by its members. Also, as this union expands by absorbing smaller unions it dilutes its representivity of each particular trade. So at worst we have an undemocratic and possibly unrepresentative institution helping a political party to cheat competition.

essay on the road to democracy in south africa - YouTube

South Africa conjures conflicting images: Nelson Mandela (symbolof courageous resistance against ), Desmond Tutu(symbol of "truth and reconciliation"), troubled past(the legacy of - a form of institutionalizedracism), hopeful future (the peaceful democratic transition usheredin by the 1994 election), abundant resources (particularly theglittering stone that DeBeers has reified - "a diamond isforever"), stunning natural beauty, lurid urban and townshipcrimes, First World infrastructure (and aspirations), Third Worldpoverty (and reality). It is a country of two (if not many) nations,two histories, and two economies.

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“ Scholars like Robert Putnam further surmise that democracyworks best when there is high "" -- the reserve of good will and trust citizenshave toward one another ("more acceptant of election resultsthat do not work in your favor, and allow those elected officialsto govern you"). Due to intense past inter-racial or inter-ethnictroubles (whites vs. blacks, Zulus vs. ANC, etc.), South Africatries to build democracy with a low reserve of social capital. ”